Brian Cruz (Earth-616)

Tag

Gallery

Real Name

Brian Cruz

Current Alias

Tag

Affiliation

Hellions Training Squad, Xavier Institute student body

Base Of Operations

Xavier Institute

Status

Occupation

Student

Characteristics

Gender

Male

Height

5' 9"

Weight

175 lbs (79 kg)

Eyes

Brown

Hair

Brown

Origin

Depowered Mutant

Universe

Earth-616

Place of Death

Xavier Institute

Creators

Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, Carlo Barberi

First Appearance	Appearance of Death
New Mutants Vol 2 #10 (May, 2004)	New X-Men Vol 2 #24 (May, 2006)

History

Hellions Squad (Earth-616) from New X-Men Vol 2 6 0002 — Tag and Icarus

Brian came to Emma Frost’s squad after the rebuilding of the school and joined the Hellions Squad, taking the codename Tag. He never questioned Hellion’s orders, and often eagerly went along with the squad’s plans.

After most of the world's mutants lost their powers during the Decimation, Emma Frost decided it would be best if non-powered students left the school. While some left early, Tag stuck around the mansion as long as possible. After he and several other mutants (including Dryad and Network) said goodbye to their friends, they climbed on a bus out of Xavier's. Unfortunately the bus was destroyed by a missile launched by William Stryker's Purifiers. Tag and the others who were in the bus were killed.

Powers and Abilities

Power Grid ^[1]

2

2

2

2

3

1

Fighting Skills

2

* Higher energy projection before being depowered

Powers

None, he was a depowered mutant.

Former Powers

Pariah Effect: Tag had a very unusual psionic ability. He was capable of tagging a person making the person become "it." When he touched someone he used a form of telepathy that caused them to emit a psionic signal making them a target for others to run away from or to run toward. He could choose the number of people who would be affected by this strange "tag" game.

Once during a training session he "tagged" Hellion of his squad making the new mutants squad run away from him while leaving his teammates unaffected.

The effect stopped when the victim or victims reached a distance of about 100 feet or so. This "tag" game could also work the other way around making all the people want to run toward the person he "tagged" and crumbling all together on top of the person "tagged".

The person "tagged" wasn't affected by his powers but all the others that he chose were compelled to do so without choice and usually they were fully aware of what was happening but weren't able to control themselves. His powers also worked in other ways like "tagging" a person to run away from himself if he desired him to do so. In this manner he "tagged" a person and the person just started to run away with no control whatsoever and he didn't even know why. When he touched someone he always said "you´re it!".